In the far south-west, the growing season is already well underway in Scotland’s most exotic garden.
On days when the rest of the country is still shivering, there is one garden where you can be guaranteed to find blossom and bulbs in abundance. Logan Botanic Garden on the Rhins of Galloway lies just half a kilometre from the coast and 18km from Scotland’s most southerly point. Sheltered by trees from Atlantic gales, it’s maritime climate provides the ideal conditions for a unique collection of plants from around the world.
Out here, on the very edge of Scotland, spring arrives early and as snowdrops give way to daffodils and camellias merge with early-flowering rhododendrons, Logan opens its gates to visitors, many of whom are astonished to discover a semi-tropical paradise in Scotland.
The surprises start at the entrance, where New Zealand Cabbage Palms (Cordyline australis) line the driveway. Once in the garden there are more majestic palms, imposing tree ferns, tender conifers and an abundance of plants that have their roots in much warmer parts of the world such as Chile and South Africa.
Many of these plants aren’t just unfamiliar to gardeners in Scotland, they are also rare in their native countries and in some cases it is only because of the conservation work carried out at Logan that some of them survive at all.
The Lobster Claw (Clianthus puniceus), a critically endangered climber from New Zealand, dangles distinctive red flowers as it scrambles over a wall. A rare Chonta palm (Juania australis) from the Juan Fernandez Islands defies its reputation for being difficult to grow and for a time Logan’s collection of Rhododendron kanehirai amounted to the only two examples of the species in the world, the plant having become extinct in Taiwan, from where it was first introduced to the West in 1918 after the famous plant hunter Ernest ‘Chinese’ Wilson found it growing in the garden of a police station close to modern-day Taipei.
And these are just a few of more 2,000 unusual species, all of them clearly labelled, which provide visitors with a fresh perspective on the natural word.
“It’s our location that makes all this possible,” says curator Richard Baines indicating with a sweep of an arm the densely cultivated 10 hectares that include Australasian, Chilean and Tasmanian collections, camellia terrace, groves of tree ferns, extensive woodlands, numerous ponds and a gunnera bog.
“We are surrounded on three sides by water. We have between 35” and 40” of rainfall every year and although it never gets really hot it rarely gets very cold.”
During the big freeze of 2010 a satellite photograph showed the whole of the UK and Ireland under a blanket of snow, but a closer look revealed one tiny green sliver of green between the North Channel and Luce Bay.
The gardens at Logan were first begun by the McDouall family, who owned estates on the Rhins for more than 700 years. Then in 1969, the walled garden and surrounding woodland passed to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, which needed somewhere to grow its collection of tender plants.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the handover and today Logan is flourishing. In recent years the plant collections have grown rapidly and all around there are signs of activity. New borders have been created beneath the trees, paths through the woodland are being edged and upgraded and the propagation houses are filled to bursting with young plants grown from cuttings that this summer will fill the garden with vivid colour.
Visitor numbers have also soared, attracted not just by the plants but by an extensive programme of musical and social events. Local school groups are actively involved in the garden and each year around 25 interns from countries such as Japan, America, Hungary and Spain, come to work and study here.
A whitewashed cottage at the heart of the garden contains the Discovery Centre and Gallery, which hosts exhibitions connected to horticulture while beyond this lies what appears to be a traditional conservatory but which is in fact a state-of-the-art glasshouse. When it opened four years ago it became the first public greenhouse in the UK to be heated by renewable technologies and within its protected environment, pelargoniums, proteas and leucospermums have been sitting out the winter awaiting the arrival of spring.
Meanwhile, next to the award-winning Potting Shed Bistro, there is a whole area devoted to desert plants. It seems astonishing to find these growing successfully in a part of the country with such high rainfall, but they survive because of the use of glass cloches to keep them dry during the winter.
“The plants cope with wet weather in summer, it is the combination of damp and cold conditions that could kill them,” says Richard.
Not everything that grows at Logan need such special treatment, but here in this quiet corner of Scotland, some of the world’s rarest and most precious plants are in very safe hands.
Filo Pastry Tree
The Argentinian shrub Polylepis australis is the most famous plant in the garden, thanks to the distinctive flaking bark, which gave it its name. In the wild it grows 5,000m above sea level in the Andes and its layers of bark provide protection from the cold.
Pride of Madeira
The towering spikes of Echium candicans, known as ‘Pride of Madeira’ stand out from the borders, reaching 2.5m by late summer.
Lapageria rosea
The Chilean Bell Flower is an evergreen climber that starts flowering in September and keeps going until April. It is perfectly at home in Logan’s damp climate.
Garden Notebook
Logan
Port Logan, Stranraer, Dumfries & Galloway DG9 9ND
Open daily until 31 October, 10am - 5pm
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